Despite not competing in the cage since a quick KO loss to Travis Browne in December of 2013, Barnett showed up to the contest looking to be in the best shape of his life, and it paid benefits over the course of the five round affair. “The Warmaster” set a UFC heavyweight record 146 significant strikes and UFC record 95 significant clinch strikes en route to a decision victory over “Big Country,” who you can guarantee got screwed out of a performance bonus by his good buddy Dana White when all was said and done.

(Who’s got two shaka brahs and a trip to the emergency room scheduled for this weekend? THIS GUY!)

When the UFC made it’s long-awaited return to Boston in August of 2013, it booked TUF 17 runner-up Uriah Hall against Nick Ring in a pivotal middleweight matchup. Ring pulled out almost immediately (there’s probably a joke to be made there) due to injury, and was replaced by fellow TUF 17 alum Josh Samman. Less than a month out from their fight, Samman was forced out of the bout and replaced by John Howard, who went on to defeat Hall via split decision.

And unfortunately, the second time around seems like more of the same for Hall. Minus that whole “losing by split decision” thing. Probably.

But you’re probably wondering: Did the UFC manage to scrounge up some poor sap to face Hall on a week’s notice? And does this poor sap’s nickname make me yearn for the days of Louis “Handgunz” Taylor? Those answers are after the jump!

After months of politelysuggesting the matchup, Lyoto Machida finally has the opponent he wants, and we’re psyched about it. No other bouts have been reported for UFC on FOX 15 yet; we’ll let you know when that changes.

Teixeira’s manager Ed Soares told MMAFighting.com today that Teixeira “tweaked a knee injury that he suffered in his October fight against Phil Davis and now requires six weeks of physical therapy.” The UFC is working on a new fight for Evans, although the date of that fight is yet unknown.

After an abundance of trash talk, a pre-fight press conference brawl, asking pussies if they’re still there, technical breakdowns, and moving betting lines, Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier duked it out for five rounds in an early “Fight of the Year” candidate, which went exactly how most of us thought it would. The main card of UFC 182, however, was pretty putrid.

Our excitement was at an all-time high, which is rare nowadays when it comes to MMA in general. This truly felt like 2008 all over again, but sometimes, we rely on nostalgia to compare upcoming fight cards that may or may not be worth viewing live.

Nevertheless, Jones vs. Cormier lived up to the billing, as both light heavyweights engaged in a dogfight at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, NV., this past Saturday night.

While we at CagePotato decided to take the day off yesterday to spend time with our children, the UFC injury plague was hard at work on January 1st, steady knockin’ fighters off of main cards. Here’s the latest casualty list…

- UFC welterweight Tarec Saffiedine has been forced to withdraw from his scheduled UFC Fight Night 60 main event against Matt Brown on February 14th due to a groin injury. The UFC will have to hustle to find a decent replacement opponent for Brown, because no other fight on the lineup screams “headliner.” We’re not trying to be a dick or anything, but when your event is so weak that a Tarec Saffiedine injury destroys it, maybe you deserve whatever happens to you?

(Darren Uyenoyama was released by the UFC after going 0-2 last year. At the time of this writing, three different UFC ranking panelists still have him listed as a top 10 flyweight. Read on for more disturbing facts! / Photo via Getty)

“These panelists may have a direct effect on how much fighters get paid.”

I kept telling myself that as I filtered through each UFC panelist’s ranking data, shaking my head in total disbelief.

For quite some time, MMA media, fighters and fans alike campaigned for better fighter pay. With the UFC announcing a six-year sponsorship deal with Reebok this past Tuesday (totaling an estimated $70 million), we were told that every penny would go into the fighters’ pockets. After all, the UFC’s primary reason for making this deal was to add a layer of professionalism to their organization, one which would make them in a way, similar to other major sports organizations.

So say goodbye to the fight banners, the sponsor-covered shorts, and the walkout shirts! For the next six years, it’s Reebok only, baby! Any sponsors that the fighters and their managers have already secured will be banned from being visible inside the Octagon. Depending on the loyalty of sponsors, we could end up seeing a lot more of this. Conversely, if the UFC does overhaul the ranking system and a fair pay structure is implemented, sponsor loyalty won’t be an issue. A new ranking system should provide an unbiased/accurate/educated selection of each division’s top 15 — a system that will award the UFC’s athletes with the fair and adequate sponsorship money they deserve.

As of right now, a fighter’s sponsorship cut will be tied directly to where they sit in the UFC rankings. That’s right… the same rankings done by the always reliable UFC-approved voting panelists. According to DFW, the current panelist voting system will soon be updated; White aims to narrow down the current field of panelists to a select few “legitimate, credible and ethical guys” in order to gain better results. Unfortunately for White, every “legitimate, credible, and ethical guy” in MMA media has already recognized the blatant conflict of interest this system presents and has refused to participate in the ranking system.

With that said, I have put together a list of the 10 worst panelists currently contributing to the UFC’s divisional rankings. Let’s get started.

10. Bruno Massami (GazetaEsportiva.net) – Sergio Pettis came into the UFC with a lot of hype, he was undefeated, the former RFA flyweight champion, and Anthony Pettis’s younger brother. Sergio won his bantamweight debut against short notice opponent and former #9 flyweight Will Campuzano. However, he followed his debut with a submission loss to the unranked Alex Caceres, before bouncing back with a forgettable decision victory over unranked Yaotzin Meza. Massami, like many panelists, may have personal favorites in the UFC, but rankings must be unbiased, objective, and logical. None of those criteria apply when Massami placed Sergio as the #10 bantamweight.

9. Steve Juon (Wrestling Observer) – From my analysis the bantamweight division appeared to give most panelists problems. The division itself had 101 records of questionable rankings. The closest division to having as many problems was middleweight with 28 recorded rankings issues. Now when I analyzed my data it wasn’t just a matter of pointing out who had Tim Kennedy at #7 when I think he should be #8. No, I noted every instance of downright BAD ranking. Steve Juon apparently missed the last few years of the bantamweight division as this is how he has the top names in the division seeded…

Henderson and Alvarez will both be looking to bounce back from recent defeats. Henderson is coming off his first-round knockout loss to Rafael Dos Anjos at UFC Fight Night 49 in August, while Alvarez was out-pointed by Donald Cerrone in his Octagon debut at UFC 178.

The Herald is also reporting two more interesting bookings for the 1/18 card…

Francis Carmont — or as they refer to him on the CME podcast, “Frankie Cars” — has experienced one of the more surprising career downswings of them all in recent months. A training partner of Georges St. Pierre up at Quebec’s Tristar gym, Carmont kicked off his UFC career with six straight victories, including wins over Costa Philippou, Chris Camozzi, and Lorenz Larkin to name a few. While his grapple-heavy style was never exactly crowd-pleasing (and some of his aforementioned victories overshadowed by questionable judging decisions), Carmont was steadily working his way toward becoming a top contender in the middleweight division according to many.

Then 2014 happened, and Carmont suddenly couldn’t buy a win. In successive appearances, he dropped a pair of unanimous decisions to Ronaldo Souza and CB Dollaway at Fight Night 36 and 41, respectively. If that wasn’t bad enough, poor Frankie Cars was then crumbled by the patented overhand right of Thales Leites (a.k.a Tally Lates) at Fight Night 49 last month, making it three straight losses for the once promising French Canadian.

And today, the news of Carmont’s release comes straight from the horse’s mouth, er, Facebook page: